Sponsors for Episode 191

Credits for Episode 191

Content for todays episode was provided by Stephanie, Andreas and Jeffrey

This episode was edited by Adam B. Levine

Music for todays show was provided by Jared Rubens and Daniel Koelsch, who reworked the song "Si" by Nils Frahm

If you're a developer, you might be interested in our Coins-for-Commits program. As the platform goes open source in the coming weeks we'd like as much help as possible and you'll earn 10,000LTBc per commit that is accepted. You can find the github repository here

China has recently surpassed the US as the world's biggest economy, and although China has had problems with its shadow banking system, corruption and more, it has shown to be surprisingly open about cryptocurrencies. This may seem surprising coming from a country that is communist, at least on paper. In order to get better understanding of how the Chinese are reasoning about this topic, here is an interview with Roland Sun (™“), a leading cryptocurrency lawyer in China, the head legal expert for notable Chinese crypto storage company ZAFED and the Chinese crypto crowdfunding platform DACx.

Please tell me a little about yourself.

I€™m a Chinese lawyer, practicing Chinese laws for more than 12 years. I have extensive hobbies ranging from economics, philosophy, football to PC games. And I€™m also pretty much interested in staying abreast with the frontiers of scientific development.

How did you get into blockchain tech and Bitcoin?

I learned Bitcoin from some media in the second half of 2012. As an amateur of Austrian School of economics, I became curious about such a currency with non-elastic supply, as Bitcoin was called €œvirtual gold€ by someone due to the limit of its quantity. Since then, I made numerous researches on the internet and read through many introductory and analytical articles about Bitcoin (including tutorials of Bitcoin wallet installation and even mining). It took me weeks to comprehend the underlying Bitcoin protocol and blockchain technology and to tell [the difference] from Bitcoin as a kind of currency. Seeing Bitcoin technically secure and economically tenable (or at least plausible), I bought my first bitcoin in late 2012. The price was just beginning to skyrocket from approximately US$10 at that time.

What are you currently working on?

As a lawyer, I advise startup companies on legal and regulatory issues. Many companies engaging in Bitcoin or blockchain technology-related business often look to have my advice in order to avoid legal trouble.

What is the legal landscape like in China regarding DACs and cryptocurrencies?

The legal landscape is still vague in China, just like in any other jurisdiction. However, China€™s regulatory environment in this area is generally much more relaxed than that of the US. In my view, China is one of the most suitable jurisdictions around the world where entrepreneurs can experiment on many pioneering business models in relation to DACs and cryptocurrencies, while most of them are clearly or implicitly banned in the US. The government in China is generally tolerant, so long as your business is not designed as a fraudulent scheme. Among others, Bitcoin and like cryptocurrencies have been officially recognized as lawful virtual commodities and are therefore OK to trade, which explains why there are so many exchanges in China where spots and even futures and other derivatives are traded. The only restriction imposed here is to block financial institutions and third-party payment processors from aiding cryptocurrency businesses (yet there are still many loopholes in reality to circumvent or even penetrate that restriction). And for cryptocoin crowdfunding or crowd sales, it is even restriction free in China. That means the initiators usually don€™t have to worry about facing the charge of €œillegal securities issuance,€ as they are likely to suffer in the US.

What fascinates you in this industry?

The blockchain technology underlying each cryptocurrency. It creates a real P2P network where everyone can transact with everyone else on an efficient and secure basis. The coming years will definitely witness extensive application of the blockchain technology. It can be applied to, among other things, the financial sectors to dispense with those traditional intermediaries and centers, and accordingly both lower the costs and improve liquidity.

What do you see is the future for blockchain tech and Bitcoin?

The blockchain tech will be widely used everywhere in [the] near [future], since it really adds value to most industries in terms of cost-efficiency and trustworthiness. Old business models will phase out with the introduction of blockchain tech as people will become decreasingly dependent on intermediaries and centers to transact with each other.

Yet Bitcoin will probably have another story. It remains unforeseeable whether Bitcoin will be well-received by the mainstream. Regulatory barriers, price volatility and accessibility are problems that hinder Bitcoin from evolving toward a kind of currency as it aims to be. While Bitcoin claims itself as a virtual gold, gold serves as rather an asset than a currency nowadays. People purchase gold typically for investment rather than use as currency. Bitcoin could share the same fate unless the underlying protocol would be significantly updated to accommodate more commercial applications.

What do you believe will be the price of Bitcoin in five years?

To fluctuate between US$200 and US$800, all depending on whether its commercial applications would mature.

A lawmaker from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is speaking out against bitcoin and other digital currencies on the grounds the technology is part of a US plot to undermine the country’s efforts internationally.

The comments, made by MP Andrei Svintsov, came during remarks addressing the ongoing debate in Russia over whether bitcoin and digital currencies should be banned as part of a broader effort to stop capital flight.

Nonetheless, Svintsov’s remarks count as some of the more extreme to emanate from the discussion. Svintsov told Russian broadcast news agency REGNUM:

Silicon Valley has become a symbol of technological innovation and achievement in the digital age – a shining beacon of progress and “disruption.” It’s hard to find someone in the Bay Area who isn’t working on some app or technology that promises to change the world forever.

As Bitcoin has grown from an obscure, niche technology embraced by a few small, highly technical circles into an actual (though still obscure) “industry,” it shouldn’t surprise anyone that San Francisco/Silicon Valley has become the de-facto go-to spot for American Bitcoin companies to set up shop.

While the Bay Area is certainly a great spot for a Bitcoin start-up, I invite you to hop on the 101 and travel about 380 miles south to my hometown of Los Angeles (La La Land for you Midwesterners), where a growing group of Bitcoin startups is transforming the City of Angels into a hotbed of digital currency innovation.

Known to some as “Silicon Beach,” LA is now home to several Bitcoin ventures, including Expresscoin, Tether, Holy Transaction, Ambisafe, Gem, GoCoin, Interwallet, and the company I work for, Netki. (If you work for a Bitcoin company based in LA that I did not mention, I apologize for the omission. And please reach out to me, I’d love to connect!)

Known primarily as the entertainment capital of the world, LA is actually a great place for Bitcoin. The monthly Bitcoin meetup, hosted by Gem, has more than 1,000 members, with a waitlist for almost every event. Engaged crowds highlight the real passion and camaraderie that has formed among a growing community that has a strong appetite for Bitcoin growth and adoption in their city.

Los Angeles has a massive immigrant population and acts as a hub for digital content creators (YouTube stars, writers, artists, etc.), making it a fantastic testing ground for two of the “killer” use cases that Bitcoiners are most excited about: remittances and micropayments to content producers.

To gain more insight into what makes LA such an appealing place to run a Bitcoin business, I spent a recent morning on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach, talking with Gem COO Ken Miller about LA tech, Bitcoin adoption, and the Venice Skate Park (where I have some fond childhood memories).

Gem is a secure multi-sig Bitcoin wallet for developers. With Gem’s API, a developer can integrate a fully functional and secure wallet within minutes.

For Miller, a key aspect that makes one location better than others is access to talent. It’s no secret that finding talented software engineers in Silicon Valley is easier than say a Little Rock, Arkansas. (Sorry to Razorback fans out there.) But is it really the only place where tech startups can hope to find qualified employees?

For Miller, the answer to that question is no, and he points to access to colleges and universities as a key component:

“If you’re a tech start-up that needs to start hiring, access to top talent is extremely important,” he said. “Good colleges are a huge part of that, and in LA we’ve certainly got them.”

It’s no secret that Stanford being located in Palo Alto played a huge role in transforming Silicon Valley into the tech hub that it is today, filling the area with talented, forward-thinking young people who would go on to build, drive and invest in the future of technology.

But just as ‘The Valley’ has access to top talent from Stanford and Cal-Berkeley, Silicon Beach has the likes of Cal Tech, UCLA, USC, and the Claremont colleges right in our backyard.

With access to a top technical institution (only MIT is ranked above Cal Tech), the most applied-to university in the country (UCLA, also a top-20 ranked university), and two of the best liberal arts colleges (Pomona is No. 5; Claremont McKenna College No. 8), LA companies have access to a large pool of highly intelligent candidates with academically diverse backgrounds. (Rankings per a 2015 U.S. News report.)

While most would assume that graduation day brings a mass exodus of “tech” people from LA colleges to jobs and companies in the Bay Area, increasingly, this is not the case.

“There’s a growing sentiment amongst these students that the Bay Area tech scene has become saturated, and that it’s a real dog-eat-dog type of environment,” Miller said. “A lot of them want to stay in Southern California, and with a growing number of tech companies sprouting up out here, they actually have real opportunities to work and thrive in LA.”

Line for the Gem booth at USC’s career fair

In addition to LA colleges, Miller notes that Gem has received a number of applications from highly qualified computer science majors at universities such as Michigan and MIT who have expressed their desire to become a part of LA’s new tech scene.

What’s particularly interesting about this is that these students have expressed a desire to do “something different,” noting that “everyone goes to San Francisco.”

In other words, we are now seeing young computer scientists and software engineers who have explored the possibility of life in Silicon Valley and are actively choosing to work in LA instead. While this is not to say that Silicon Beach will replace Silicon Valley as America’s tech or even Bitcoin capitol, these changes are important, and the community should take note.

If you’re thinking about starting a Bitcoin company, or your current startup needs a change of scenery, take a look at LA, we’d love for you to become a part of what we’re building (and the weather’s not too bad either).

Pay your taxes in bitcoin? Maybe, if you live in one of three states now considering bills in support of that option.

In January, Utah Republican state representative Mark K. Roberts introduced a bill, H.C.R. 6, to create a Council on Payment Options for State Services that will study how Utah could accept Bitcoin as a valid form of payment. The bill includes the possibility for Utah residents to pay state taxes using Bitcoin.

In February, eight New Hampshire state representatives introduced a bipartisan bill, NH HB552, to propose that New Hampshire should officially accept Bitcoin for taxes and fees. The bill calls for the development of a detailed implementation plan, followed by operational acceptance of Bitcoin by the state before July 1, 2017.

It seems almost surreal that Bitcoin, often portrayed by the popular press as a means to avoid taxes and hide cash and illicit activities from the government, could find one of its first official applications in tax payments.

The short and pragmatic text of the New Hampshire bill only mentions the financial implications of collecting tax payments in Bitcoin. Republican Representative Eric Schleien believes that the adoption of Bitcoin for tax payment purposes would be a boon for the state, and argues that Bitcoin transactions are cheaper and more secure than those made with credit cards, so that the law would offer both state and taxpayers a more reliable payment option at a reduced cost.

The Utah bill is more visionary. It mentions the important benefits that an official adoption of Bitcoin could bring to the state’s technological leadership and economy:

“Technology industries, including emerging technologies, play a growing role in [economy] and culture. The state must also remain open to new technologies and ideas to continue attracting talented and educated entrepreneurs. [Bitcoin] provides merchants with an attractive alternative mechanism for accepting payments, because transaction fees for Bitcoin are generally much lower than those imposed by other payment processors. “

Reading between the lines, a key passage here is “attracting talented and educated entrepreneurs.” Rep. Roberts seems fully aware that new, disruptive technologies can create fast growth and “iPhone moments” that boost entire industries. He appears to be persuaded that Utah could become a Silicon Valley for cryptocurrency business. Perhaps someday visitors to Utah will be greeted by a “Bitcoin Rockies” sign.

Utah is also the home state of Overstock, a large online retailer that allows customers worldwide to pay in bitcoin. Overstock is also behind one of the most interesting and potentially disruptive developments in the Bitcoin space: their Medici crypto-stock exchange project aims to create an open alternative to traditional stock exchanges such as NYSE and NASDAQ, based on blockchain technology and accepting Bitcoin payments.

“New Hampshire is known as a libertarian hot spot, and the Bitcoin community here is strong. Read about the rich connections between Bitcoin and the Free State Project here.”

Meanwhile, last week, Democratic member of the New York City Council Mark Levine introduced a bill that would allow residents to pay for any fines and fees they owe the city using Bitcoin. In an interview with CoinDesk, Levine said:

”It started with realizing how much money the city of New York is losing on transaction fees on credit cards, ultimately it’s several million a year because of all sorts of fees and fines. [I] think that being the first major city in the U.S. to make this move sends a clear signal that we’re innovators here.”

Levine’s arguments are similar to those used to promote the New Hampshire and Utah bills: accepting Bitcoin payments would save the city a lot of money, and a vibrant Bitcoin economy would attract top tech talent to the city.

The passages quoted represent two often conflicting aspects of the developing Bitcoin economy: the business-oriented vision of a regulated Bitcoin economy that informs the Utah and New York City bills, and the free-wheeling Libertarian spirit reflected in the Free State Project comments to the New Hampshire bill. As often happens, future Bitcoin developments are likely to be influenced by both.

Crypto Facilities Ltd., a London-based broker founded by former Goldman Sachs Executive Director Timo Schlaefer, has announced the launch of its bitcoin derivatives trading platform.

In financial jargon, a derivative is a contract that derives its value from the performance of an underlying entity, in this case the exchange value of bitcoin. Crypto Facilities trades financial products such as bitcoin options and futures, allowing users to “go long” and bet that the price of bitcoin will rise, or “go short” and bet the price will fall. The first derivative offered by Crypto Facilities is a forward contract – a contract to buy or to sell an asset at a specified future time at a price agreed upon today – on the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin. The forward contract serves to hedge against bitcoin volatility, or to benefit from future swings in the bitcoin price.

The forward contract comes with different maturity months, and traders can choose from the nearest three in the March, June, September and December cycle. Once a forward reaches maturity, it will be settled automatically. Traders do not have to wait until maturity to get out of their position, but can trade out at any time. Buying one forward – the minimum trading unit – requires a minimum deposit of 0.50 bitcoin. To sell short one forward, the minimum deposit is 0.25 bitcoin.

As of this morning, one forward at September 15 was trading at USD $242, while the current Crypto Facilities Instantaneous Bitcoin Price Index (CF-BPI) was USD $236. The CF-BPI is calculated continuously based on the current best bid and ask prices observed on major bitcoin exchanges.

“Our forward is probably the simplest and most effective tool out there to protect yourself against bitcoin volatility,” said Crypto Facilities Co-Founder and COO Jean-Christophe Laruelle. “If you want to lock in the value of one bitcoin, you sell one forward.

Forward contracts are traded between investors on the platform developed and managed by the brokerage, which matches sellers with buyers without acting as a central counterparty and takes a commission on all trades based on the official fee schedule. The brokerage, targeted at institutional investors and expert individual investors used to trading derivatives and futures, operates in bitcoin.

Crypto Facilities, which employs a team of qualified financial experts, was founded by Laruelle, a former Senior Trading Architecture Designer at BNP Paribas/Société Générale and Schlaefer, a former Executive Director in Credit Quantitative Modelling at Goldman Sachs who holds a doctorate in financial engineering.

The firm, registered with the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an appointed representative for broking exchange-traded futures and options, adheres to strict compliance and security standards and holds bitcoin deposits in cold storage on offline, encrypted servers.

The availability of mature financial products such as Crypto Facilities derivatives shows that Bitcoin is taken more and more seriously by the financial establishment and that – like or not – the Bitcoin space is becoming more professional and mainstream.

“The Bitcoin space still lacks professional, reliable marketplaces, and this is what we provide,” Schlaefer said. “We apply the same standards in terms of risk management, compliance and reporting as you would see in the traditional finance space.” He added that the firm has a number of additional financial products in the pipeline and plans to expand its range of services.

Schlaefer told CNBC that he saw real potential in the technology behind Bitcoin – the blockchain – which is a publicly-distributed ledger system that makes sure all transactions are verified in a transparent, decentralized and secure fashion. The CNBC article observes that, like Schlaefer, the Bank of England has also said it sees huge potential for the technology behind Bitcoin.

In a recent paper titled “One Bank Research Agenda,” the central bank said that Bitcoin could reshape the financial industry. A section of the paper (Page 31), dedicated to a Fedcoin-like scenario where central banks might issue digital currencies such as Bitcoin, notes that both the technology and financial sectors need to be engaged, as each brings important and distinct expertise.

“Creating such a system would entail creating a protocol for value transfer over the Internet, akin to what Berners-Lee did for information,” the Bank of England paper says.

CoinSpark has released a new version of its protocol that allows users to send private messages tied to bitcoin transactions, effectively allowing its technology to be used for more commercial, notarized transactions.

The second major update from the bitcoin-based asset transfer protocol launched in September, CoinSpark 2.0 will enable a broad range of applications according to its developers, including the ability for two parties in a bitcoin transaction or asset transfer to record its purpose.

Gideon Greenspan, CEO and founder of Coin Sciences, the company behind the platform, described the upgrade as a way to provide bitcoin with the capabilities of more traditional payment systems such as PayPal and SWIFT when it comes to facilitating commerce.

In this episode of SovereignBTC, we talk with Tatiana Moroz about her liberty and bitcoin inspired music, TatianaCoin and Bitcoin 2.0, the Silk Road Trial, and her new advertising firm, Crypto Media Hub.

Plus, John and Tatiana make a big announcement at the end of the show!

As perhaps an extension of its recent focus on revitalizing its image, the Bitcoin Foundation announced yesterday it would allow its members to cast votes in its latest election round directly on the bitcoin blockchain, the digital currency’s public ledger.

Billed in a blog post as a way for the Bitcoin Foundation to advance blockchain technology by new executive director Patrick Murck, the decision was soon met with mixed reactions, with some lauding the novel step and others criticising it for a potential negative impact on an election meant to fill two outgoing board member positions.

Morgan Spurlock, Academy Award nominated director of “Super Size Me,” is CNN television’s “Inside Man.” In 2014, he spent a week living on bitcoin. The resulting “Inside Man” episode aired on February 19, 2015, affording a large television audience an in-depth Bitcoin experience that was no doubt a first for many viewers.

“[Satoshi] wanted to create a global currency that existed outside of a central bank or government,” Spurlock explains.

Starting at the Bitcoin Center in New York City, Spurlock buys his first bitcoin from the live auctioneer at the site. He then proceeds to make his first bitcoin purchase, a slice of pizza and a bottle of water. He buys groceries and later, a massage.

Morgan interviews Dan Kaminsky, a white hat hacker (ethical hacker) and Chief Scientist of White Ops Inc, about the average consumer’s number-one concern: whether or not Bitcoin is safe. Dan explains how, when he first heard about Bitcoin, he was quoted as saying: “This is going to fall immediately.”

Dan continues to explain how, like many of us, he was wrong. That although some businesses plugged into the network may have failed, Bitcoin, the core, is solid.

What Spurlock does not mention here is the open source nature of the core. Bitcoin is available for any and all to view the source code, and exactly how it works– if you understand it.

Bitcoin’s open source nature is one of the key reasons why it is a trusted system. If it had been released as closed source software, with limited transparency, there would have been far more distrust in the system. Bitcoin’s open source nature has allowed for global reading, understanding and inclusion.

The open source nature not only allows anyone to read the code, but it also allows anyone, worldwide, to contribute (via GitHub) additional changes to the core. This contribution does go through a rigorous testing and approval phase, and it allows for continual strengthening of the system’s reliability.

After making his purchases, Morgan visits a Bitcoin mining facility.

Viewers here should be aware that although the blockchain discussion in this segment is excellent, the Blockchain.info on screen is not the actual blockchain, but a third-party business that performs a variety of bitcoin-related services, one of which is watching the blockchain and reporting information for users of the site.

The blockchain can be viewed via a variety of other third party businesses, and is not limited to Blockchain.info.

Notably, the blockchain is not “stored on the Internet” as Spurlock reports. The blockchain is stored by people who provide bitcoin nodes. These are the individuals (or mining businesses) who hold full copies of the blockchain.

If the Internet went down tomorrow, the blockchain would still exist, and would simply be waiting to be used.

Spurlock goes on to try to pay his utility bills with bitcoin, make a purchase on the internet, and discuss the future stability of bitcoin compared with fiat currencies. He winds the broadcast up with a conversation with U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who called for a ban on bitcoin in early 2014. Manchin mistakenly states that Bitcoin “ … has been banned in two different countries – Thailand and China – and South Korea stated that it will not recognize bitcoin as a legitimate currency.”

Realising that Bitcoin adoption depends on each individual’s ability to teach others the merits of digital currency, Spurlock ends his show by convincing a coffee shop to accept bitcoin, and walking the shop owner through the process.

Spurlock’s final interview, with tech entrepreneur Andreas Antonopoulos, lifts the curtain on the future of Bitcoin.

Antonopoulos explains how Bitcoin investment (at that time, summer 2014) has experienced more growth than the Internet had in its dotcom boom period. Antonopoulos goes so far as to label digital currency as the “third wave” of Internet growth (dotcom was the first, social media was the second).

“It takes time, and for more regular people to be seen using bitcoin for legitimate activities,” Antonopoulos comments.

Whether you have been involved in the sector for years, are new to the ecosystem, or want to explain the subject to someone you know, this video does a very good job and is highly recommended. But keep in mind that this documentary was made more than eight months ago, and that is a long time in the Bitcoin world.

A new secure mobile payment solution for Android will be showcased at the Mobile World Congress, March 2 – 5 in Barcelona, Spain. The new payment app developed by Rivetz and other partners – an Android alternative to Apple Pay with Bitcoin support – will be available in the second quarter of 2015 and is compatible with over 350 million existing Android devices, including Samsung smartphones. Demonstrations on a Samsung Galaxy 4 smartphone will be held daily at the Samsung partner booth (Hall 8.1), Trustonic booth (Hall 7, Stand 7G81), and at the Intercede booth (Hall 7, Stand 7B81).

“We are very pleased to be combining trusted computing technology with the innovations in Bitcoin and blockchain technology to offer consumers the most secure bitcoin payments,” Rivetz CEO Steven Sprague told Bitcoin Magazine. “For consumers, the killer app is having money on the phone, and for the merchants, the built-in security of the system will make it easier to persuade them to accept bitcoin.

Rivetz developed this application over the last year, integrating the contributions of the partners and using the Trustonic Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) as an operating system for the application. “Our solution reflects the latest specifications for mobile payment technology by Global Platform and Trusted Computing Group,” he said.

With Apple Pay, announced at the iPhone 6 launch event last September, Apple wants to grab a big slice of the exploding – and potentially very profitable – mobile payments market. Apple Pay is compatible with a wide range of point-of-sale payment solutions used by merchants, including the terminals provided by the major credit card companies, but requires an Apple device (iPad, iPhone 5 or higher) on the consumer side. That is an important limit since only 12 percent of smartphones in use are made by Apple, and most are older iPhones that don’t support Apple Pay.

Google is not watching idly – it recently acquired Softcard technology to power its payment solution Google Wallet — and established agreements with Verizon, ATT and T-Mobile to pre-install Google Wallet on the smartphones sold by the carriers. Google Wallet is available for Android smartphones, which have an 85 percent market share. (Note, however, that not all Android devices support Google Wallet at this time.)

Besides smartphones, both Apple Pay and Google Wallet will also run on next-generation smart personal devices, such as connected watches, which will add to their appeal and ease of use. But Apple Pay and Google Wallet don’t support Bitcoin, which is an important limitation for the fast-growing community of Bitcoin users, consumers and merchants alike. The new Android payment solution, developed by Rivetz, Trustonic, Intercede and Bitcoin payment processors Coinapult and BitPay, supports bitcoin payments and can be integrated with bitcoin wallets.

“Rivetz is delivering state-of-the-art support that will help Bitcoin [become] a standard, secure capability on every handset,” said Tony Gallippi, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of BitPay. “We look forward to enabling the Rivetz capability as an option for millions of Bitcoin users.”

The new open-source payments technology is easy to use and compatible with any Trustonic-enabled smart device. The solution is compatible with many thousands of Bitcoin merchants, offering consumers peace of mind that their Bitcoin transactions are safe, private and secure. Furthermore, the new solution meets all of the requirements of the recently implemented regulations for European payments using smart devices, which opens the way for deployment in Europe.

“We are pleased to be working with Rivetz to bring state-of-the-art security and ease of use to consumers,” said Trustonic CEO Ben Cade. “The Rivetz team is offering a great model for any app developer to leverage the advanced security that Trustonic TEE provides.”

Intercede’s MyTAM cloud service is used to protect the user’s bitcoin wallet and data from malware and any threats that may be present on the handset.

“Apps used for executing Bitcoin transactions are an attractive target for hackers, who are developing increasingly advanced methods to deploy their malware onto Android handsets,” said Intercede CEO Richard Parris. “By ensuring the activities of apps are kept separate and secure from the main OS, end users can be assured their Bitcoin transactions are protected.”

This development is important for the Bitcoin ecosystem, because it integrates bitcoin payments in a comprehensive, secure mobile payment solution that is technically as advanced – or more advanced – than competitors Apple Pay and Google Wallet, supported by leading smartphone manufacturers, and fully compliant with applicable regulations. It will facilitate Bitcoin adoption among consumers and merchants, reduce regulatory obstacles and bring Bitcoin closer to mainstream.

RE/MAX London, the UK-based franchisee of the global real estate network, is now accepting bitcoin, litecoin and dogecoin as payment for property rentals through a partnership with cryptocurrency processor GoCoin.

The decision enables RE/MAX’s 16 London offices to accept the payment method, a move the franchise said would benefit both itself and its tenants.

German Bitcoin exchange bitcoin.de and Fidor Bank have announced a new “Bitcoin Express” option for Fidor Bank customers to buy and sell bitcoin instantly on the exchange.

The new option addresses the delays involved in exchange transactions. Bitcoin exchanges like BitStamp, which are not licensed banks, must often wait hours or even days for a transaction to be cleared by an external bank. But because Fidor Bank is fully licensed, it is able to provide a direct interface to the mainstream banking system, eliminating transaction delays.

As a result, holders of a “Fidor Smart Giro Account” are now able to purchase bitcoin directly from a bank account and receive bitcoin immediately after the purchase. They can also sell bitcoin to another Smart Giro Account holder and have the money instantly credited to their account. Since the money is always in the user’s bank account, customers don’t have to worry about the possible insolvency – or dishonest behavior – of an external exchange operator.

The Smart Giro Account is a full bank account with all the standard features, including interest on credit balances and a low-cost credit card. The latter is, in practice, equivalent to a card that can be recharged with bitcoin.

Oliver Flaskämper, board member of bitcoin.de, said, “That is not only good news for all Bitcoin fans, but also good news for fintech companies based in Germany. “

Fidor Bank CEO Matthias Kroener commented: “The prompt conducting of [Bitcoin transactions] from one bank customer to another bank customer enhances security massively. As such Fidor Bank is setting a further milestone in digital banking.”

In related news, Fidor Bank disclosed plans to expand to the U.S. market. Kroener praised U.S. authorities’ open and pragmatic middle-of-the-road approach to Bitcoin regulation.

Kroener is persuaded that traditional U.S. banks are losing their appeal, especially among younger generations, because they don’t offer the innovative services that today’s tech-savvy consumers demand.

“The reason that a lot of very successful fintech startups are happening in the U.S. is not only because there are so many talented people setting up those businesses. It is also because there is a huge gap in innovative services.”

Fidor Bank’s fintech community website invites developers, notably dubbed “Pirates of Banking,” to become “part of reshaping the post-crisis banking industry through cutting-edge technology instead of doing the minimum to be compliant.” The deployment of innovative fintech services in the U.S. market could boost the mainstream acceptance of Bitcoin and the digital economy as a whole.